"Father did you also...." The rest wasn't needed to be said. Adam just nodded his head with a serious look.
"It seems this ruin is more like a labyrinth."
Around 10 or 20 minutes later, another group of adventurers appeared. It seems this party of adventurers also had managed to break the illusion. As for what happened to those who couldn't break the illusion...they died while being trapped in the world of illusion. Inside the illusion world, their mana was sucked without them even knowing about it.
Soon an hour passed. In that hour, a few other parties of adventurers and a few rogue cultivators all joined them. Everyone quietly waited inside the room waiting for something to happen. Everyone knew in their heart that this was just the beginning. The real challenge is yet to come. Who's who manages to pass all the challenges will be able to gain rewards.
After another 70 minutes of waiting, the golden star lying in the middle of the room started to shine. A bright golden light covered the entire room. Many were forced to shut their eyes and block the light with their hands as they couldn't see anything in such intense light. While powerful cultivators like Aditya, Adam, and many others remained unfazed and kept their eyes on the golden star, fearing that if they even blinked their eyes, they would miss out on something very important.
"What is going to happen now?" One of the cultivators asked. Unfortunately, no one here had the answer to this question.
'I wonder what happened to the people who entered this ruin before us.' Before Aditya and Adam, thousand of others entered this ruin. Aditya couldn't help but wonder what kind of challenges those people might have faced. Did the people who entered this ruin before them face the same illusion challenge or did they face something else? Aditya had many questions in his heart.
'It was foolish of me to just enter the ruin without gaining more information about it.' Before entering the ruin, Aditya thought of this ruin as nothing but another ancient structure. Aditya thought in a day he and Adam would be able to explore the ruin and return home. But this ruin turned out to be very different from normal ruins. This ruin is more like a labyrinth or a dungeon.
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Scene change____
Meanwhile outside the Shattered Icy ruin, the big portal that allowed the people to enter the Shattered icy ruin began to shrink in size while also slowly changing its color. Seeing this everyone panicked.
"The portal is closing down."
"What is happening?"
Under everyone's horrified gaze, the portal's color changed to crimson red and the size of the portal shrunk to only 1 meter in size.
Sigh!
Everyone sighed in relief seeing that the portal had stopped closing down. But they were confused to see the change in color of the portal. Seeing this, the thugs decided to inform their leader about this as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, one of the rogue cultivators hesitantly approached the portal. Normally standing in front of the portal would suck you inside. But this time, no matter how close he stood nothing happened.
"It seems the portal has been closed. But there are thousands of others who are trapped inside." Before what happened, the people who entered the shattered Icy ruin would find themselves teleported to various locations inside an actual underground ruin. One could easily return to the underground ruins through multiple portals, but everything seems to have changed this time around.
Before Aditya had entered the ruin directly, those who had entered the ruin directly were taken into the illusion world where they had to fight someone very close to them who had passed away but who had been very close to them. For one to be able to break free of the illusion, one would have to know that they were trapped inside an illusion in the first place. Even a 5th-order cultivator would have a very difficult time figuring out that this was an illusion world because everything inside it seemed so real that it would be extremely difficult even to tell that it was an illusion world.
So now both the entry and exit were cut off. No one knew what was happening. No one knew what was going to happen to the people who were trapped inside. No one knew what kind of trials Aditya and others would face. Even Aditya and others didn't know what situation they currently were in.
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Scene change______
Meanwhile, the golden glow coming from the golden star started to dim. Everyone was able to open their eyes and see what changes had taken place under the blanket of this intense golden light.
At the present, there were more than a thousand cultivators in this room along with Aditya and Adam. All the cultivators had different lives and different occupations. Some of them were adventurers, some of them were rogue cultivators, and there were some who were sent here by some factions who wanted to know more about this ruin. The cultivators sent by those factions came here in the disguise of rogue cultivators so that no one would find who sent them here.
Everyone looked up. The golden star had long disappeared. Instead, the whole place was filled with more than hundreds of floating doors. The floating doors were 2 meters in length and was 1 meter wide in size. As for what lay beyond those doors, no one had the answer to it as the light beyond the door was blurred. It was almost as if trying to see through a layer of mist. Even if Aditya, Adam, and other cultivators tried to sense what lay beyond those doors, they couldn't sense anything.
"It looks like each door will lead us to a random place that might be filled with life-threatening challenges or there is also some possibility that treasures might be found beyond those doors." One of the cultivators of speculated. Aditya and Adam could see that almost everyone is agreeing with his words. Even Aditya also felt what this guy said might be right or somewhere close to the truth.
"Time waits for no man. It's better to take the risk than regret not taking any action." Saying the very same cultivator jumped over 10 meters above the ground and managed to step inside one of the doors. A middle age woman decided to enter and follow the first cultivator.
Seeing this, others also decided to take the risk. "Father, I think we should stick together on this." Adam was also about to say the same thing to Aditya. He just nodded his head. Both father and son pair looked around as many other cultivators began to enter.
"Let's enter that one." Just as they entered, a few other cultivators also followed them inside.
Aditya and Adam didn't have to wait too long to find out what lay beyond the door. It turned out the door had led them to an island. Now one might ask what is so special about this island. Aditya and Adam also wondered also had the same question. Both of their questions were answered as they found the entire island floating in the air.
"Aditya, it looks like exhaustion from endless work has finally caught up to me. I am seeing an island floating in the sky. It looks like I should start making my retirement plans." Adam closed his eyes and then shook his head.
"....."
"Father, it's not the right time or the right place to think about your retirement plans." Even Aditya found it extremely hard to believe that there was a flying island. For a moment the Dragon Monarch couldn't help but feel that they were trapped in another illusion.
The island on which Aditya and Adam were standing was almost 1/4th the size of Azure city. In simple words, the size of this island was huge. The island seems to be slowly moving in the direction of the south. The weather on the island was sunny. At the center of the island, there was a big mountain on which Aditya can see an ancient broken castle. Tall, thick, green trees were growing all over the island. There was even a small pond 100 meters away from them.
The island was covered with white clouds. A gentle northern breeze was hitting his face. Aditya speculated that it was this northern breeze that was slowly pushing the floating island in the direction of the south.
"I am starting to feel that we're trapped in another illusion." Adam has never heard of anyone seeing a floating island in the sky. The concept of a floating island was very ridiculous. It would take an enormous amount of energy for an entire island to constantly fly. The energy needed to lift something like this is almost the same amount of energy the entire Istarin Empire would use in the next 4 or 5 years.
"This is not an illusion. I feel this time, what we're experiencing is very real." Aditya replied while picking up a small green leaf from the ground.
"The question is, who has enough resources to build something like this? And why I have never heard of anything like this?" Aditya's heart was filled with too many questions. Ever since he entered the shattered Icy ruin, his curious nature had asked him hundreds of questions. Aditya still wanted to know how he was trapped in an illusion world and how the illusion was able to affect even his senses.
For a moment neither Adam nor Aditya said anything. Both men just stood there thinking of various possibilities in their heads. After a while, Adam broke the silence and suggested. "Anyway, standing here won't give us any answer to our questions. Let's explore this island and see if we can find anything."
Aditya nodded his head in agreement. "Father, we will have to remain careful. Last time, I was sneakily attacked from behind." Aditya wasn't going to let his same mistake repeat once again. This time he could feel that his powers weren't restricted. Secretly he already had activated a few of his passive skills and was ready for any kind of battle.
"Let's see if there is anything useful inside the ancient castle that is located at the very top of the mountain." As both Adam and Aditya started to walk toward the mountain, they came across a Bamboo grove. Compared to an average Bamboo tree, the trees on his island were almost 2 times taller and thicker.
Around 5 minutes later, the Bamboo grove finally ended. Now they came across various kinds of fruit trees. Several kinds of seasonal fruits were growing on the trees. This only left Aditya and Adam more confused.
As they reached the foot of the mountain, Aditya and Adam were greeted by two people. One of them was a dragon while the second one was a human.
"Today has been full of surprises. First I met my adoptive father Ahmed now I am meeting my own self. What kind of trick is this?"
"Even my own wife won't be able to guess if this fake replaced me." Adam looked at his duplicate version.
Both Aditya and Adam were confronted by their own duplicate selves. Both duplicates are exactly like Aditya and Adam. The Duplicates versions had Aditya and Adam's height, weight, and body build.
"It is as if someone copied and then pasted ourselves."
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Really Thank you very much to all those who sends support with valuable golden tickets. I hope we can keep it up!!!
I hope you all enjoyed the chapter. Today I would have like to upload another chapter but tomorrow annual exams start. I will try to upload either 2 or 3 chapters on the last day of the month. Each chapter will be of 2000+ words words.
But no promises.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from f(r)eeweb(n)ovel.𝒄𝒐𝙢